Wednesday, May 31, 2006

more or less. Only ten more days to go now. I've even gotten into the rhythm of attending driving class three times a week, studying a bit during the day and writing in between. This week's poems are --

16. The Magnificent Shrimp World of Fergus 17. I won't even mention Seinfeld18. A Driving Student Adjusts the Seat19. Ugly Underwear20. Far From Where I Was Headed

#16 was my "pomming" of a poem in POM2 -- an ultra-kewl magazine if you like the idea of pomming stuff like soft lobotomy puppies. #19 is, of course, my warped disbelief about being the only ugly underwear in the writing community. Michi's a fruitcake... but everyone knows she's half-nuts.

&nbsp Submission date: 17 February 2006 &nbsp Reply date: 27 May 2006 &nbsp Reminder: next deadline is 10 July 2006 for Magma No 36, due out in November, edited by Anne-Marie Fyfe, with a particular theme of "inscapes - poems of the inner self, of secret thoughts, steams of consciousness, interior monologues, altered states of mind". Mark it on your calender... and, erm, maybe remind me? Hee.

Dead publication:

Well, it's official Lorraine and James is on indefinite hiatus. I pestered -- well, stalked seems more correct -- the editor until she replied that "all of the works are being released back to the writers". If anyone needs to get in touch with her, I suggest leaving a message at their blog.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Okay, I'm about to get very, very depressed. For weeks I've studied the mechanics of weirdness, I've practiced being weird, I've communed with weird poets... I even mailed some goods to Michi hoping to bribe her royal weirdness to come over my place. Then, out of curiosity, I took the weirdness test again and my personal weirdity actually plunged down to only 50% (as opposed to being 60% previously). Waaaaaaah!!!

You Are 50% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird...But too damn weird to do anything about it!

&nbsp Submission mailed: 22 May 2006 &nbsp E-mail reply: 25 May 2006 &nbsp Thoughts: Sigh. Still hitting water. Based on the guidelines, if the editor keeps the poems for more than a week or month, it means you've hit part of her battleship. No such luck yet.

&nbsp Submission date: 26 May 2006 &nbsp Reply date: 26 May 2006 &nbsp Thoughts: No luck with this one either. But, damn, is the editor fast. He gets my kudos just for this.

Survived day 15 in 30:30:

Yay! I've uncorked a bottle (not mine) and drank halfway to celebrate. Another 15 more to go....

Poems list:

12. soccer &nbsp (from An Encyclopedic Guide to Counteracting Bad Luck) 13. 'I'll be gone before you find this'14. For Six Whole Years I Only Saw Bits of Seinfeld15. It hadn't always been like this

With the driving lessons going three times week, I've thought of giving up. Wanted to give up, actually. But my conscience made these funny, obscene gestures at me and I relented. [from afar, looks like Michi, especially the hair]

Haven't touched a computer game for two weeks now and the few times I get the urge I don't even know what to play anymore. How depressing.

Bestish prose poetry ever:

Thought I'd share my discovery of Michael Brooks Cryer's poems in the autumn 2002 issue of Spork. Hee. Have been going through their archives with wild glee.

Here's an excerpt from Lessons Before Traveling. His poems are found here:

Alexander the Great always took his pens and pencils wherever he traveled, mostly because he wanted people to think he was writing things down, but in reality he just liked the way they looked behind his ears. Different from the yellow pencils we now know, his were black like thick lead rods, and his pens, although very similar to 20th century pens, were never used for writing. Even though some speculate that Alexander enjoyed his pencils in his right ear and his pens on his left because of an early reading disability, no one knows why the boy never quite felt comfortable fashioning both at the same time. Specialists have even falsely compared Emily Dickinson to Alexander because of her pens and pencils. Emily did in fact wear pencils—the number depending on her mood—twisted into her wiry hair as she wrote. But not Alexander....

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

And not sure if I'll get past the 15. Went to driving class yesterday evening and my mind's been a whirligig of road signs and road stripes ever since.

Have managed to crank out 4 more poems... am going from scrap to crap and might eventually be falling apart to rap, ap and p (which means parking the brain on some blue zone until someone tows it away).

John Vick enjoyed yesterday's -erm- ticklish poem so much that he's offered a fabulous recording -- his voice is seeeemply magnificent: Translating EthelHee. I think I'll have to thank Michi and Nathan, too for this one -- since they got me thinking about Wuthering Heights.Thank you, my dears!! [in a Gumbie Cat/Jennyanydots voice]

Friday, May 19, 2006

I finally squeezed some time in for a hair trim. It took the hairdresser two hours to do it -- 4 minutes of which was spent doing the zigzag parting (see pic below). Anyway, it sure feels like a load off my shoulders (6 inches). Hee.

So, here I am, on Friday the 19th, looking decidedly human again.

What I've been doing lately:

1. Enrolled myself in a driving school;2. Rounded up the House of 30 poets for Marginalia;3. Updated Leonard Gontarek's site (he's got a rave review in The Pedestal Magazine!!);4. Waited in line outside clinics;5. Did the medical paperwork of my husband -- who's been mending well, diabetes going down, down, down. Yay! for that;6. Walked to the library and borrowed Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides) and American Gods (Neil Gaiman -- it's not exactly Neverwhere but it's the only one they've got and it's in English).7. Reading Middlesex now and got a bit hung-up on how could anyone name a boy-child Chapter Eleven.

Mental notes on taking driving lessons again:

1. I will be parsimonious with the car horn.2. I will not keep my foot on the gas pedal even though I know that the instructor is breaking for me every time.3. I will learn how to do a perfect 90° turn.4. I will not invade the opposite lane and be the cause of a major traffic jam. 5. I will keep my eyes on the road. 6. I will not run over inanimate objects, mainly shrubs.7. I will be nice to the driving instructor and not tell him/her it's his/her job to watch where I am going. 8. I will not go slow on the presumption that any crowd can be dispersed by a moving car. 9. I will learn to occupy one (1) parking space.10. I will not be stultified by my driving incapacities since, if Adrian Mole (my reality) managed to do it, I (the road nightmare) can, too.

Half-acceptance/half-rejection:

Sent a batch of crazy poems to nthposition last Sunday and got a reply immediately from the editor asking me to re-send two poems he particularly liked along with another batch in August because the summer issue is now full. That was nice.

It's a terrific 'zine with tons and tons of inspiring weirdness. I'm still going through the archives: reading and learning. Being, of course, only 60% weird and not from Bayesia I have to study and work hard to obtain an acceptable degree of weirdness.

One week in 30:30:

Well, I've survived so far with, let's see...

1. It had nothing to do with apples2. And another pill put words into Nigel's beer3. It's Sunday again on the wet paint sign4. Michaela5. Something like death6. Falling into a Manhole is Considered Lucky7. May 18, 2003 and My Sister was Still Watching Seinfield

For the record, three of these are Nigel poems. He's become my Linus blanket on bad muse days.

Every issue is stunning -- very eclectic tastes in poetry, too. I've never even dreamt of seeing my poems printed on glossy paper. It's 65-85 (a mixture of matte colored and glossy b/w) pages, 6 x 9 (approx.), perfect-bound with matte color card cover. Because of their lengthy response times (more than 6 months, if I remember correctly), I wasn't sure if I'd be submitting again... but now I'm sure I will.

Orbis (#136): Because of the 2nd place award in the previous issue, I asked for a three-issue subscription instead of cash. Poets in this issue include Tony Curtis. Ian Davidson, Gillian Clark, Nigel Humphreys, Mike Jenkins and Sheenagh Pugh (of whose book, The Beautiful Lie I am a devotee).

Friday, May 12, 2006

Well, it's now official. I've begun (again) my second 30:30 round in ITWS. Let's see how long I stink around this time.

My poem, bloom is now up in the Spring 2006 issue of Pebble Lake Review. Tons of poetry here -- however, being a print journal, only a few are available for viewing online. But hey, Rachel's got a poem here, too. Hiya, girl!

I've been tagged by 80% weird Michi to reveal my reading -- erm -- hobbits. If you like to play along, check out the list below and see which ones you've already read, which ones you think you might read someday, and which ones you'll probably never read.

&nbsp Underline the ones on your book shelf. &nbsp Bold the ones you've read. &nbsp Italicize the ones you might read. &nbsp Cross out the ones you wouldn't read even if -- er -- your sex life depended on it. &nbsp And place (parentheses) around the ones you haven't heard of.

(Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow)(The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus)(The Last of the Just by Andre Schwartz-Bart)(Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis)(Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (The Red Tent by Anita Diamant)(A Bell for Adano by John Hersey) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Herzog by Saul Bellow)

War and Peace - Leo TolstoyOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Little Women - Louisa May Alcott The illustrated Man - Ray BradburyAnton Chekhov's Short Stories - Anton ChekhovRoughing It - Mark TwainA Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. LeGuin (The Mistress of Spices - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni) The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor DostoyesvkiGrendel - John GardnerA River Runs Through It and other stories - Norman Maclean (Nobody's Fool - Richard Russo)(The Worst Journey in the World - Apsley Cherry-Garrard)(The Book of the Thousands Nights and a Night - translated by Sir RichardF. Burton)

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Wheeeee! My poem, first there was chloroform is now up in Diagram 6.2.

Kristy Bowen, who's a Diagram regular by now, also has a terrific poem in this issue: Bebe Marie. Incidently, she also received the Adroitly Placed Word Award. I'm quite a fan and can't wait to get her book, the fever almanac in November when it's scheduled to come out.

Interesting editorial, too about hate mail. Made me go down on my knees to thank myself that I'm no longer an editor. Poets can be scary people... which is probaby why they've put my husband on medication. Hee.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Yay! Husband is now back from the hospital. Being still under observation, he has to prick his fingers six times a day to check the glucose level before and after insulin injection. We're all hoping it's temporary diabetes -- due to stress, infection, antibiotics and prolonged excrutiating p-a-i-n. Crossing my fingers on that.

Spent the whole week going to and from the hospital... just checked my mail twice before crawling to bed. Hope to catch up with my e-mail soon!

In the meantime, a mass smiley hug to everyone who's offered good vibes and hugs --

Recent Acceptances:

Half-Drunk Muse accepted my poem, I'm caught deep in the dye of her for their upcoming issue. Watch the response time below and grow your seasonal veggies appropriately... teehee:

&nbsp Submission date: 28 December 2005 &nbsp Reply date: 4 May 2006

A UK-based print magazine, The Frogmore Papers accepted two poems: Hangover and Chocolate Pudding for their September issue (#68):

&nbsp Date mailed: 3 April 2006 &nbsp Date received: 4 May 2006Double yay! Or as Spock would have it:

Monday, May 01, 2006

This is something of a mass e-mail again. My husband was admitted to the hospital last Saturday and I haven't been myself ever since. It's nothing serious... but he was in a lot of pain.

They discovered he's diabetic, too -- which was quite a blow. He's been through three doctors these past two months and no one noticed this in the urine test even though it had always been under their noses.

They've jammed him with all sorts of antibiotics and, thankfully, he's better tonight. It turned out to be an abscess... which burst and *that* made him feel much better. Yay for that!

The good news:

My poem, Franklin in the Garden placed 2nd in the Orbis 135 Readers Award. Such a thrill, since the competition was fierce. I also get 15 GBP slapped on my slimy hands. Sure brings a bit of sun to my night.

About Me

Arlene Ang is the author of "The Desecration of Doves" (2005), "Secret Love Poems" (Rubicon Press, 2007), and a collaborative book with Valerie Fox, "Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon" (Texture Press, 2008). Her third full-length collection, "Seeing Birds in Church is a Kind of Adieu" was published by Cinnamon Press in 2010. Her poems have appeared in Ambit, Caketrain, Diagram, Poetry Ireland, Poet Lore, Rattle, Salt Hill as well as the Best of the Web anthologies 2008 and 2009 (Dzanc Books). She lives in Spinea, Italy where she serves as staff editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. Website: www.leafscape.org